Talk about horror in paradise. It’s hard to believe, but a 15-year-old rape survivor has been sentenced to be whipped 100 times in public. Let’s put an end to this lunacy by hitting the Maldives government where it hurts: the tourism industry.
The girl’s stepfather is accused of raping her for years and murdering the baby she bore. Now the court says she must be flogged for “sex outside marriage”! President Waheed of the Maldives is already feeling global pressure on this, and we can force him to save this girl and change the law to spare other victims this cruel fate. This is how we can end the War on Women – by standing up every time an outrage like this happens.
Tourism is the big earner for the Maldives elite, including government ministers. Let’s build a million-strong petition to President Waheed this week, then threaten the islands’ reputation through hard-hitting ads in travel magazines and online until he steps in to save her and abolish this outrageous law.
Sign the petition and forward this blog post now to get us to a million.
The Maldives is a paradise for tourists. But for women there, it can be hell. Under harsh interpretations of sharia law, women and children are routinely punished with flogging and house arrest if found guilty of extramarital sex or adultery. It’s nearly always the women who get punished, not the perpetrators. A staggering one in three women between ages 15 and 49 have suffered physical or sexual abuse — yet zero rapists were convicted in the past three years.
Winning this battle can help women everywhere, as the Maldives government is right now running for a top UN human rights position – on a platform of women’s rights! Global outrage has already forced President Waheed to appeal the sentence in the 15-year-old’s case. But that’s not enough. Extremists inside the country will force him to abandon further reforms if international attention fades. Let’s tell the Maldives that it stands to lose its reputation as a romantic tourist hot spot unless it changes its attitudes to and laws about women.
If enough of us raise our voices, we can get President Waheed and his MPs to face down the extremists. The president is already on the back foot over this shameful, tragic story – let’s seize this moment to prevent more horrifying injustices against girls and women. Sign the petition, then send this post widely.
The organization Avaaz is all over this, and trying to help. Avaaz—meaning “voice” in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want. Avaaz empowers millions of people from all walks of life to take action on pressing global, regional and national issues, from corruption and poverty to conflict and climate change. Their model of internet organising allows thousands of individual efforts, however small, to be rapidly combined into a powerful collective force.
The Avaaz community campaigns in 15 languages, served by a core team on 6 continents and thousands of volunteers. They take action — signing petitions, funding media campaigns and direct actions, emailing, calling and lobbying governments, and organizing “offline” protests and events — to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform the decisions that affect us all. members have fought many battles in the global war on women. In Afghanistan, they helped protect a young woman who bravely spoke out about her horrific rape; in Honduras, they fought alongside local women against a law that would jail women using the morning-after pill.
Let’s now protect the women of the Maldives by standing beside Avaaz and donating to their campaign to help protect this young woman.
MORE INFORMATION:
Maldives girl to get 100 lashes for pre-marital sex (BBC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
Maldives government to appeal flogging of rape victim (Dawn, Pakistan)
http://dawn.com/2013/03/01/
Rape victims punished, failed by Maldives justice system (Minivan news, Maldives)
http://minivannews.com/
Judicial statistics show 90 percent of those convicted for fornication are female (Minivan news, Maldives)
http://minivannews.com/